Saving Sam
by JadeRabbyt
Summary: Danny is embroiled in a brutal battle that ends with Sam's abduction, and now Danny must face depression incarnate. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

Saving Sam

By JadeRabbyt

Disclaimer: Danny Phantom belongs to Nickelodeon. Style, plot, and pizzaz belong to yours truly. ### means a scene change.

There were five of them, dressed in ragged jeans and t-shirts, toting a chain, a club, and a crowbar. One had a knife in its teeth, and Danny caught the cold shine of brass on the knuckles of another. They walked with a swagger and toyed with their weapons as they advanced on his group, emerging like the specters they were from the open end of the alley.

"Don't worry guys. We'll be alright. I think I have an idea."

"Yeah, I'm sure," Sam said in a loud whisper. "They didn't kill the other five people either. If we're lucky we'll only be savagely beaten."

Tucker gulped. "Yeah, Danny, I really hope you know what you're doing on this one. I think that's the only way out of the-"

"Thank you Tucker, I know. It would be great if you both could just shut up for a second." They were coming in closer, still about thirty feet away. They walked along the alley, avoiding the dumpsters, boxes, and trash cans that littered the street with swift, precise swerves, no doubt a scare tactic for less talented individuals. To Danny, the behavior meant that he still had the element of surprise working for him, which was good, because there wasn't much else in his favor at the moment. The five ghosts narrowed their path as they approached his group. If he timed it right, if he could surprise them in a narrow spot then he might have a decent chance. They continued closer, moving into a rough line to pass between two dumpsters-

Danny zapped into ghost mode and leaped into action. The ghosts froze, their arrogance effaced by bewilderment. Danny landed a blow to the jaw on the leader before they could react, but then they began to swing their chains, clubs, and knives in earnest, pursuing Danny into the air as a pack. Danny gritted his teeth as a chain made a painful connection with his shin. Tucker had whipped out the thermos and was looking for a clear shot. Danny swung his fists, occasionally connecting, but he was feeling far more damage than he was dealing.

A sharp, commanding voice called through the melee. "Get the others! They're only human." Several ghosts broke off from the assault on Danny and circled around toward Sam and Tucker, weapons at the ready.

"No!" Danny shouted. "Tucker! Use the therm-" his call was cut short by a club to the stomach.

"Way ahead of you." Tucker took aim and fired off the thermos, sending a blinding ray of light through the shadows that swallowed one of the attackers. The other veered off and returned to the main group, where the prey was much less prepared.

"I can't get a clear shot unless you can break free!"

"Through the apartments," Danny heard one of his assailants mutter. He aimed a kick in that direction, but he couldn't get any leverage behind it in the crowd. Someone gave him a punch that sent him flying across the alley and toward a nearby building. He barely had time to phase out, passing harmlessly through the brick and rematerializing in a pitch-black hallway.

Tucker and Sam watched Danny fade through the wall. Tucker aimed and fired, but the group was too fast and raced through the wall after Danny. "Nuts," Tucker said.

"Come on." Sam was already pulling him toward the front. "We've got to get in there and help him."

"How? It's midnight and this is a bad part of town. Nobody's going to open up."

"We'll see about that."

###

Danny jumped up to race back outside, panicking with the knowledge that he was in a very bad spot. He leaped back into the air and hesitated a moment over which way to go in the thick darkness, but then the moment was gone and so was his chance to flee. The four gangsters were on him again in a flash. Glowing lime-green fists, chains, and shoes raced across his field of vision, leaving him blinded and cornered by the streaks of color. He backed against the wall and tried to fend them off, hoping to protect at least one part of himself from injury, but before he could realize his mistake they shot around behind him. Spine, shoulder blades, and lower back seemed to take a single massive blow, forcing Danny's torso out and giving the two attacking him in front the opportunity to sneak in some abdominal blows. He felt them battering him with every weapon he had seen on them at the start of the battle, but he couldn't tell where, only that it hurt. He ached everywhere and everything seemed a green blaze of fists and weapons. He was going to die.

No. He landed a haymaker that sent one of them sprawling. No he was not going to die here. He delivered a last vicious kick and raced upwards, through the ceilings, feeling the wind tear fresh and cold across his cuts and bruises, but he paid no attention and continued up, wondering how many floors the building had. Something knocked at his feet, throwing him off balance and sending him spinning laterally for just an instant. An instant was all the gangsters needed.

###

In the time it took Danny to rematerialize in the hallway, Sam had already begun to tear several boards from a window on the first floor. She opened it up enough to crawl through, thick splinters from the sill tearing at her clothes. She landed in darkness on the inside and glanced back to Tucker, who was struggling with the tight squeeze.

"Come on." The window opened into a stairwell, and she hurried to race up it and out of sight, towards the muffled grunts and bangs. Tucker landed on the floor, grunting as he landed on his head and flopped free of the window.

"Just don't do anything stupid," he called after her. "You're not a ghost!"

"Hurry it up, Tucker! You're the one with the thermos!" He struggled to his feet and ran after her.

---

A/N: Whatcha think, so far? Like it? Hate it? Tell me about it! Shame on me for interrupting the fight scene.... Never fear. More shall be posted very soon!


	2. Chapter 2

Saving Sam: Chapter 2

By JadeRabbyt

A/N: Thankies to all my kindly reviewers. I appreciate your responses and patience. I'd like to thank Wiggle Lizard for the wonderful vote of confidence, and I think NiNab's question will be answered by this chapter. ;) I feel I should warn autumngold that things will get very... interesting for Danny-boy later on. Here, mi amigos, is the conclusion to the fight and the beginning of the plot.

Danny found himself caught in a studio apartment. They were a little more cautious, blocking his upward and downward escape. He had to change position every minute to keep from being surrounded, making it more difficult to fight, but he thought, all things considered, that he wasn't doing too bad at all at the moment. One or two of the ghosts were starting to look pretty beat-up, having taken some exceptionally damaging hits, but their jaws were still set and their weapons and punches still flew fast and hard. The group wasn't backing down.

"Danny, where are you!"

Danny felt a burst of relief. Sam. "I'm up here! Get that stupid thermos up here!"

"Hang on, Danny, we're coming." Tucker shouted.

Danny knew he could easily hold them off until his friends arrived. "You hear that?" he gasped between blows. "My friends are coming. We're going to... get the.. res' of you an' send you all... back to hell."

Danny took a vicious box to the ears, punishment for his presumption. Through the ringing in his head, he saw the ghosts let up just a bit, three of them cocking their heads to better hear the orders of the fourth. Two of them branched off and flew through the wall into the hallway. With two gone, there was more room for the three remaining combatants to maneuver. One ghost twirled its chain, spinning it through the air and trying to whap Danny in whistling, silvered strikes. Danny used his newfound freedom of movement to dart away from the more serious blows and deliver his own solid, well-aimed punches on the chain's downswing. He still had his hands full when he heard Tucker banging on the door, rattling the handle.

"Stay outside," Danny shouted. He flew out into the hallway several yards away from where Tucker was standing. "Aim!"

Tucker nodded as Danny made a sharp right, heading up through the ceiling. The two ghosts flew into the hallway in pursuit of Danny, and Tucker managed to nab one before the other got wise and headed back into the apartment.

Tucker waited, cautiously sweeping the thermos back and forth across the hall. He relaxed when Danny came swooping from the ceiling and hovered several feet away from him.

"Jeez Danny, are you OK?"

Danny gave Tucker a thumbs-up, reeling a little. "I'm still conscious." A blue mist slid out of his mouth as he talked, but he dismissed it as a sign of the ghosts' retreat.

Tucker looked him over uneasily. "Too bad your sister's a shrink and not a doctor. I have to hand it to you, though, you must be getting better to have lasted against that crowd."

"Where did those two go? Please tell me they split."

"Only one of them. The other one..." He held up the thermos and grinned. "Right here."

"Great. How many total? I was kind of busy..."

"Two of five."

"Not bad." Danny blinked and glanced up and down the hallway. "What about Sam? Is she with you?"

"No, she ran up ahead of me. I lost sight of her," Tucker checked the hallway and looked back towards the stairwell, dismayed. "Where'd she... Danny?"

Danny was staring straight ahead, seeing the fight over again. He had been talking, and then they had been talking, and he had felt brass knuckles strike his ear, kicks and punches that swirled together in his mind in a red shot of pain, but one of them had said something. There were only two of them at the end of it all. But something had happened... the leader had said... he'd called off two. Two had gone, but where had they gone?

"Uh, Tucker? Did you see any other ghosts after you were inside the building?"

Tucker shook his head. "No, just those two who were after you. Are you OK? Did they- you don't think they took Sam." He stated it as a fact.

"I think we'd better search this building. Right now." He jetted off down the hall, and another thread of blue vapor slid out of his mouth. He stopped short and dashed through the insides of the surrounding walls, searching, ready to fight. He found nothing and continued through the building, looking in every room and awakening the remainder of the sleeping occupants in the process. They yelled and ordered him out, but he didn't even stop to look at them. They were not Sam, they could not tell him what had happened to Sam, and therefore they didn't matter. Danny was tired, badly beaten, and he felt miserable. And Sam was missing. In the entire building there was no sign of her at all. They had taken her. He and Tucker shouted until they were both hoarse, but they had taken her.

###

Danny and Tucker didn't leave or stop searching until shrieking sirens showed up at the apartment. Danny didn't have the strength to lift himself and Tucker out, so they walked side by side, Tucker holding Danny's weight and Danny extending invisibility to both of them. They trudged past angry, pudgy ghetto-cops and shouting women and angry men in their bath robes. After they had left the whole noisy mess a safe distance behind, Danny phased them both back to reality, although they might have continued on invisible. The few who walked by were familiar with the sight of injured adolescents and only walked a little faster when they passed.

They talked very little on the way back. Danny had a nasty cough and was still bleeding in places, although his phantasmal self had carried off the worst of it. Tucker insisted on seeing him home.

Danny was tired. He left Tucker on the sidewalk outside and trudged up the stairs. He should call someone about Sam. He couldn't believe she was missing. It was impossible. He'd taken that beating, and he could feel the bruises and scrapes and cuts and maybe broken ribs, but there was no way Sam was missing. He stumbled into bed and twisted the blankets around himself. Sam was fine; she had probably gone home during the fight, maybe some brick or dust or some crazy thing had grazed her, and she'd gone to get something for it.

Battered, broken, and exhausted, Danny told himself sweet lies until he dropped off into a dreamless slumber.

---

A/N: Thanks for stopping by, folks. Don't forget to tip your waitress and review on the way out.


	3. Chapter 3

Saving Sam: Chapter 3

A/N: My reviewers have earned the Rabbyt's soft, fuzzy, bushy-tailed gratitude once again.

"We should go look for her," Tucker said, taking a bite of the school slop. He looked Danny up and down. He still had some bruises and scrapes, but they were a little less obvious. "You look better, by the way."

"Thanks. I heal fast." He sat down at the table. "I can't believe this happened. I should have moved faster, but they were all over me and I-"

"You did the best you could. I had to practically carry you back to your house."

"I guess." He stared at his food, brows creased and mouth down turned in anxious contemplation. Some kid screamed behind him, the victim of a wedgie, but Danny didn't even turn around.

"You know she's probably fine, right? I mean, we have two of their buddies in the thermos. They'll probably want a hostage exchange."

"Hm."

Tucker snapped his fingers in Danny's face. "Hey." Danny looked up sharply. "Are you OK? Did you get hit in the head last night, or-"

He flashed Tucker a strained smile. "No, no I'm fine. You're right. We'll probably get her back today. It's just unbelievable." He sighed. "Sam's missing. It would make sense if you or I was captured. I fight, and of course you've got the thermos." Under Danny's confusion, Tucker could hear an undertone of hurt. "But Sam? She's no threat."

Tucker chuckled. "She'd argue if she heard that. She was hell-bent on getting into that apartment after you."

Danny's brow shot up. "Really?"

Tucker nodded. "Yep."

Danny sat back on his bench and considered that.

Tucker smiled and raised an eyebrow. "What's on your mind? Wanna talk about it?"

Danny looked up quickly. "Talk about what?" Danny leaned forward and swiftly changed the subject. "Let's leave school after this and go back to that alley. If they want to bargain, that would be a natural place to meet."

But Tucker wasn't quite ready to drop it. "Why the rush? Wouldn't after school be better? It would cause less trouble with parents." He wasn't serious, but it was a much more practical way to go, come to think of it. It was getting harder to find excuses for the late-night excursions and occasional cuts from school.

"No. I want to get her back as soon as possible."

"You sure? My parents-and yours too, were worried last-"

Danny slapped his hand on the table. "Don't push it, Tucker. If you don't want to come and look for our mutual friend, give me the thermos. If you want to learn about the commutor property of algebra, go ahead and stay."

"OK, Ok, I'll stop." Tucker felt a twinge of guilt, but he still had to stifle a laugh. "It's commutative. Commutative property."

"Whatever," Danny muttered. Tucker ate while Danny alternately stared at his food and glanced around the cafeteria. Tucker finished five minutes later, and they both stood to leave the thinning mass of kids. On the way out the door, Danny bumped his shoulder against a pink shirt.

He heard the shirt scoff. "Watch where you're going."

"Hey, same to you," he said over his shoulder.

"Danny, that was Paullina," Tucker said.

"Oh?" He turned around to look. "Hey, yeah, it was." He watched her figure as she walked away. The beginnings of a wistful smile started to appear, but the expression died before it was fully born. He turned away. "Let's get going."

A/N: Yes yes I KNOW it wasn't long enough. So sue me. The next chapter is like umpteen bajillion trillion words long, if it makes you feel any better. Well, actually it's more like 2k. It'll depend. At any rate, thank yew all fer yer time. Drop me a review and come back soon!


	4. Chapter 4

Saving Sam: Chapter 4

A/N: Thanks much to my reviewers! Thanks to Sakura Scout for the favorite, and to autumngold for the specific comments. Read and enjoy, fellow humans.

"So, this is where we were before." Danny and Tucker stood at the entrance to the same dark alley they had visited the previous night.

"Yep. This is where you asked if it was a good idea, and Sam said that no it wasn't, and I said not to worry and that everything would be fine," Danny recited. Already in ghost mode, he drifted into the alley without hesitation while Tucker looked after him, thermos in hand.

"See anything?"

"Just a lot of garbage." Going intangible, he flew through it all quickly. "Nothing on the inside."

"No heavy, lumpy garbage bags?" Tucker said with an overly innocent expression.

Danny looked at him impassively. "That's so funny I could kick your butt. I was under the impression that you were her friend too."

Tucker's expression hardened. "I am. But you're taking this way too seriously. She's lost, not dead. We've lost track of her before, but we always find her. Don't take it so hard."

"Just because it's happened before doesn't mean we should be slacking off." Danny argued. "It was different this time. You didn't see the way they-" The blue vapor slid out of his mouth. Danny glanced around the area quickly, getting into a defensive position. Tucker scrambled to power up the thermos. Every shadow stared out at them, and every garbage can looked sinister. Catching movement, Danny jerked his head around toward the back end of the alley. A little dirty napkin moved up and waved itself.

"If you want to see your friend again, you'll agree to a truce."

"Show yourself and I'll think about it," Danny's eyes narrowed on napkin, trying to discern the ghost's exact position.

"Put down the thermos, first." Tucker looked to Danny, and Danny nodded. Tucker lowered it to the ground. "Good."

An image appeared. Danny recognized his figure as one of last night's attackers, but the ghost's aura was a deep, disconcerting darkness that overlaid the typical lime green. Danny had never seen anything like it. From the smooth, deep pitch of his voice, Danny guessed that he was the one who had given orders. The order. "Alright, let's talk," Danny said guardedly.

The ghost smiled easily and came a bit closer, allowing Danny a closer look at it. He was puzzled for a moment by its countenance. It had a thin, angular face, sharp Roman nose and high cheekbones. Danny looked it in the eye and saw a fairly reasonable being. He wondered how this could be the leader of the deadly crew he had fought the night before, but then he remembered Sam.

"We want Sam back."

"And we want our companions back, and I want something from you."

"What could you want from us?" Tucker asked.

The ghost glanced down scornfully. "Be quiet, mortal."

"Hey! I-"

"Tucker," Danny said, a plea and a warning at once. Tucker shut his mouth and simmered. "So, what do you want?"

"It is a matter I would like to discuss in private."

"He's not going anywhere and neither is that thermos until we get Sam back."

"Darn straight," Tucker muttered.

The ghost frowned. "Well, I guess I could always track you down at your house or school..."

"No, don't do that." That was the last thing Danny wanted. "Just tell us what it is, and we'll see what we can do."

"You seem to think that you have the advantage here, that you set the conditions," the ghost said quietly. "You don't. You can't kill my accomplices. They're already dead. I can find them again if you shove them through your toy portal. Your friend, your little girlfriend, on the other hand, is painfully human." His voice dipped to a sadistic growl on the last phrase, and it made Danny's skin crawl.

"Don't you hurt her! If you-" he started to shout. He grunted and started again. "Look, fine, whatever."

"Excellent," the ghost said with a smile. "Follow me."

Danny glanced apologetically over his shoulder. "Sorry about this, Tucker."

"It's no problem. If those are the terms that'll keep Sam safe, it's fine by me," he said. "Just watch your back, Danny."

Danny followed the ghost up over the city. The afternoon sun gave everything a withered, tired look which Danny mildly resented. They flew low over the city, skimming the tops of buildings and occasionally winding around them, passing over clueless pedestrians, strings of laundry, and afternoon traffic. Danny quickly became impatient with it all.

"How much farther is it to your little hideout?"

"We're nearly there," the ghost replied. Danny looked around. They had arrived at the docks, and the whole place was rank with decay and filth. The ghost flew into an ancient wooden warehouse that slumped against a potted gravel road. The little paint left on it was peeling, most of the windows were broken, and it looked like it should have collapsed a hundred years ago. The water slapped ineffectually at the shore on the opposite side of the road, rearranging the assorted tires, glass, and paper which lay scattered along it. Danny imprinted the place on his memory, unpleasant as it was, and took special note of a faded signpost that read, "Pier 17." He swooped down and followed the ghost inside.

The interior of the relic was worse than the outside. Its stench was the first thing that hit him, an eclectic mix of animal waste, mold, and something sharp and synthetic. The wood was rotting, and one wall was stacked with metal drums marked biohazard. Some were rusted, some were broken and empty, and some were leaking. The concrete floor looked damp and mildewed, and the only dim light able to penetrate the building came from several rusted-out holes in the sheet-metal roof.

"Nice place you have here," Danny said.

"Isn't it?" the ghost mused, floating near the center of the building. "It's an old chemical warehouse. Every once in a while, one of those drums explodes when the fumes get to some critical level. It's lethal to the living. Keeps people away." He gave Danny a smug grin. "Obviously, the fumes don't affect ghosts, but I wouldn't change back to your normal self here."

"No kidding. You don't have Sam in a place like this, do you?" he demanded in alarm.

"Not at all. She'll be fine as long as we can reach an understanding."

"What do you want?"

The ghost folded his arms and said evenly, "I want to know what's wrong with me."

Danny folded his arms and scoffed. "You've got to be kidding."

The ghost swept toward him and Danny noticed that those cold, calculating eyes that had previously appeared quite rational had deepened into burning black pits, its unusual aura a mere echo of the darkness in its eyes. "Shut up, little halfa, stop being so presumptuous and listen." Danny didn't feel as though he had a choice. Not with those eyes. "Listen," the ghost's voice growled. "Something's bad with me. I know that. I didn't use to be like this. Something happened. Something snapped. I don't know exactly when, and I don't remember exactly how, but as of late I've begun to think that it's irrelevant." The ghost's words careened around the inside of Danny's skull. Those black depths were eating away at him, pulling at him. Danny tried to yank himself away, but that darkness only yanked him back harder. "Whatever happened is now self-sustaining."

The ghost swooped up to Danny, who floated transfixed, powerless to move or dart away. "I used to be someone! I had a mind as sharp and incisive as the dagger I now carry in my teeth and wield against pedestrians." The despair seemed a black muck in the ghost's eyes that oozed from its sockets and slide into Danny's own. "But somehow, I got lost somewhere, or something happened and then I... I think it might have been suicide, but I just don't know." Those pits bored and struck down into Danny.

He tried again to jerk his gaze away. He couldn't. He felt his mind beginning to drop away from him and down into the depths of those eyes. He fought back with everything, but he was losing ground fast. A panic began to build inside him, an emerging tidal wave of sheer terror. He was afraid of the eyes, afraid of the creature, afraid of the nightmarish building, afraid that he knew what the ghost would ask of him. He had to remember Sam.

His mind seemed to spin a little less crazily, to slow down ever so slightly at that. Sam. He was out to save Sam. Okay, he thought to himself, to those eyes that still shot down into him. Okay, let's be depressed and miserable and hopeless, but know one thing. When this whole mess is over, Sam is going to be safe.

He was finally able to tear himself away. He panted for a moment, breathing deeply and looking away at the ground. After a moment, he found he could think clearly again, but he still felt a trace of those eyes in him...

He looked up and a little to the side of the ghost, using his peripheral vision just to be safe.

The pits were gone. The ghost scanned his face, a small, bemused smile on its face. "I want to talk to your sister."

"No." Danny's response was determined and final.

"I'll guarantee her safety, of course."

"It doesn't matter. You're absolutely insane. I wouldn't trust you within a thousand miles of her."

"But you trust me with your girlfriend." The ghost smirked. Danny resisted the impulse to jump over and rip its lips off. "Generally, I don't break my promises. Besides, I don't really need your help at all. I could always follow you until I find out where you live; your sister probably lives with you; I have a little doctor-patient chat with her and then kill both her and your girlfriend just because I can. Does that sound like a better deal to you?"

Danny twitched. "I'd stop you."

The ghost gave a sinister chuckle. "Ah yes, let's look at that scenario. You toss a couple punches here, and I'll beat you. You can't even handle my gaze. I pummel you until you pass out and turn back into a human. You either die here in the fumes or are left bleeding on some street corner. Then comes the fun part." Danny looked away. Clouds of darkness had once again begun to creep across the ghost's eyes. Something in the back of his mind whispered that he couldn't take much more of that. He thought about Sam. He was going to save Sam.

"I don't kill you," the ghost continued, enjoying it. "I leave you and kill both your friends. The only reason you won before was because of that thermos. That will be easy enough to steal." As an afterthought, he added lightly, "I'll do your family too, of course, if I can find them."

Danny didn't say anything for a minute. The ghost waited, watching Danny's gears grind against the options, trying to find a way out and finding none. It laughed. "Let me see if I can make the decision a little less difficult for you. It's not something I do very often for anybody, but since I'm asking you for a favor the little honor I do have is telling me that it's not nice to torture people when they want to do something nice for you. In your case, I suppose, it would be more like me forcing you to do something nice for me, but still..."

"Get to the point."

"I really don't intend to hurt your sister. I promise."

"Ha!" Danny's laugh was short and cynical, delivered with a pained expression.

"I'm being serious. My behavior, at certain times, is something I can't seem to control. I won't get into the details now; you probably aren't interested anyway, but I consider it a shameful thing to be unable to control oneself."

Danny looked him up and down, wondering how this ghost could possibly judge anything as shameful, but he reconsidered his options and spoke again. "If I did this for you, and it's strictly an if-"

"Of course."

"I would have to be present, and I'd have the thermos with me."

The ghost waved it aside. "Fine, I trust you."

"You give me Sam before you see my sister."

"And I get my companions."

"Fine. And Sam and Tucker would be present."

"No," the ghost said firmly. "The girl is fine, but I don't like the boy. His mouth is too big and his head is too thick." He glanced at Danny. "Rather like yourself, actually. I imagine you two make quite the little team."

"We three," Danny corrected.

"Yes, of course," the ghost hissed pensively, softly. "You three." He looked back at Danny. "So, will you do it?"

Danny grimaced and kicked his legs in mid-air, feeling cornered and frustrated. "I'll see what I can do."

The ghost grinned. "Excellent. Return here when you're ready. You have until Friday."

Danny nodded. Today was Tuesday.

"One more thing, Danny." The ghost smiled facetiously. "My name is Alex." Danny made a small show of turning around and drifting calmly through the wall. Once outside, he shot off like a rocket. "Don't hesitate to decide earlier than that. I can assure Sam's basic safety, but I also assure you that she is very uncomfortable!" the ghost roared after him, erupting into a laughter that bounced across the surrounding warehouses like cold bullets of hail.

Danny fled, leaving the docks far behind. He raced across the city, the buildings and earth only a blurred, glittering streak beneath him. Tears rolled down his face in a steady stream. He wanted to race away from those eyes, those pits with the tangible darkness that seemed press the heart in his chest into stillness. He flew until he was over the suburbs and until the suburbs turned to fields, cows grazing on the grass, tinted orange and spiked by shadows in the failing light. Danny came down for a landing, but he couldn't get his feet up in time and hit the ground hard, rolling head over heals across an empty field of sparse trees and coarse bushes. He came to a stop on his side and didn't move for some time.

He watched a solitary ant skitter across a blade of grass, criss-crossing over its own path in search of something to put in its tiny mandibles. Drained in body and mind, he watched the ant and the thin veins that ran parallel up the blade. It looked so vivid, so wonderfully tangible and real compared to the void in Alex's eyes. Even when the sun went down and the ant had gone away, the blade still stood there, a thick, opaque, verdant green. He rolled over and looked at the stars. They sprinkled the sky in uncountable millions, twinkling through the darkness in swiftly shifting colors. Pink, blue, white, red, yellow, white again. Danny looked past the stars into the blackness, bracing himself instinctively.

What met him was not hostile; it was not even mildly contentious. It was a clear, rich, beautiful blackness. It sang notes of infinity and eternity in his ears, and echoed away across the earth past all horizons. The stars littered it like trumpet blasts of momentary but brilliant glories, and the soft, dusty streak of the Milky Way ribboned across the sky like a gentle piano sonata. Danny lay back and watched the grand composition until the darkness in Alex's eyes was thoroughly drowned in the celestial roar.

Danny stood up and decided to see if he could find his way home. He didn't know where he was; he still had to worry about Sam, and he didn't know what he was going to do about Alex's request, but at that moment, it all seemed to him like he had a decent chance of fixing everything.

A/N: I desperately hope you enjoyed this chapter, and if you didn't I desperately want you to tell me why. I should also mention that Chapter 5 may be delayed somewhat. I have Doom 3, the best computer game in all the known universe, and a brand-new 3.6 GHz computer, the fastest commercial computer in all the known universe. How can you, the reader, yank me away from my zombie-slaughtering extravaganza and push me back to the word processor? Just drop me a review.


	5. Chapter 5

Saving Sam: Chapter 5

A/N: I give you Chapter 5! I'm on the second level of Doom III. That game is absolutely incredible. I am happy that you enjoyed chapter, Sakura Scout. I hope this one is similarly satisfying. Thanks for your continuing support, Wiggle Lizard. Chicken Person and autumngold, I thank you both for your comments.

It took a while for Danny to get home, but he managed it at last. He strode up the brick steps, grasped the doorknob and pulled it open. It triggered a beep, audible to him from down in the lab. He heard two pairs of feet come rushing up the basement stairs to meet him.

"Daniel Fenton, do you have any idea what time it is?" his mother demanded, coming up from the stairwell.

"Well-"

"We've been waiting for you for four hours, Danny. It's twelve fifteen."

"Yeah," his father said sourly. "Your mother made me rig that stupid bell so we'd know when you were home."

"You haven't done your homework, your curfew's at nine, and you didn't even bother to call us. You did the same thing last night." His mother's voice softened. "Danny, what were you doing?"

"I-"

"You weren't at a party, were you? Are you addicted to drugs, Danny?" His father asked. "Drugs are bad! They mess up your brain and make you lazy. We'll have to get you some help with that."

"No! I wasn't at a party doing drugs!" Danny shouted.

"Don't take that tone with us," his mother ordered. "If you weren't partying, then what were you doing?"

Danny scrambled for a moment. Somehow, he didn't think that they'd believe he'd been negotiating a hostage crisis with a dead homicidal maniac. "Well, I was out... looking for Sam."

"Why?" his mother asked.

"She's been kidnapped," he explained slowly, trying to decide on a wise degree of truth.

"What do you mean she's been kidnapped?"

"Well, I mean I think she's been kidnapped. "You see, we-Sam and me and Tucker-were out in the city, and we went to do something and she went off somewhere and... And we didn't find her after that," he finished.

"This happened today?"

Danny shook his head. "No. Last night. We thought she'd gone home or something, but she wasn't at school or at home and we couldn't find her, so I wanted to look some more tonight and then call someone about it tomorrow." He thought it was a pretty good excuse. He should talk to Tucker and make sure their stories matched up.

"And you waited until now to tell us this?"

"Yeah. I thought we might be able to find her..."

"Danny, you should have the common sense to know that these things should be reported immediately." His mother sighed and rubbed her temples. "Tell me that you at least let her parents know."

"I was going to tell them..."

"We're calling them right now." His mother picked up the phone and Danny gave them her number. "Nobody's answering."

"That's typical. They're out of town a lot."

"Do you have another number for them? Or their cell phone?"

"I-" Danny blinked in surprise. He did have Sam's cell phone number. He tried in futility to suppress a Cheshire grin. "No, I'm sorry but I don't."

"Well, that's that." His dad began to head back downstairs, but Danny's mother grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back.

"No, we're calling the police right now. And what are you smiling about?"

Danny shook his head. "I have a, um, thing, in my room, that does good stuff." He knew he was making the situation worse, but he couldn't help it. The news was simply way too good. Had he been around anyone else, he would have been flipping cartwheels.

"Oh my gosh, he is on drugs," his dad muttered.

Danny's mother glared at him. "Are you making things up?" his mother asked, hands on her hips.

"Kinda, yeah."

"Well, abduction is not a laughing matter. There really are hundreds of kids out there missing." Danny nodded emphatically. He was gradually getting himself under control. The sooner this was over, the sooner he could call Sam. If she had her phone on. He prayed that she had her phone on. "You can't joke about..." She drifted off, sighed, and rubbed her temples.

"I think this can wait until morning," his father suggested.

"Yes, this can wait until morning. Danny, you're in big trouble, and we want the truth tomorrow. Until then, get upstairs and go to bed."

"No more crack tonight either!" his dad added.

"OK!" Danny ran upstairs, two at a time.

His mother looked over at her husband and shook her head. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

Danny was upstairs doing a little snoopy-dance. He grabbed his phone off its cradle and began to punch in Sam's number, but he couldn't remember it and had to dig the scrap of paper she'd written it on out from under a pile of laundry. He started to enter it again. On the last digit, he remembered that Tucker existed. He hummed tunelessly as he hung up and dialed Tucker. He felt as though he hadn't seen him in ages, and Danny wondered what had happened to Tucker. He had happy memories of somebody named Tucker, goofing around with him, going for milkshakes, shooting zombies in the arcade, catching ghosts with a drink holder.

"Ugh, hello?" Tucker's voice was thick and gritty from sleep.

"Hi! Guess what? I have Sam's telephone number!"

"You don't-" Tucker sighed in exasperation, a thick wind of static over the phone. "She's not at home. I double-checked yesterday morning."

"Cell phone." There was silence on the line. "Her cell phone, Tucker. I have her cell phone number."

"You've got to be kidding me. Why didn't we think of that before?" he said, fully awake and jubilant.

"We never see her use it. We're her only friends, pretty much, and her parents are hardly ever home. How do you think we should do this?"

"Do you have a speakerphone?"

"No, but I can-" He heard a sharp rapping on his door.

"Danny! Get off the phone right now and get in bed!" his mother shouted.

"Alright, alright." Danny jumped up and turned off the lights, keeping the phone in his hand, then jumped into bed. "Gotta go for a minute."

"Sure."

Danny hung up and threw the phone on his nightstand. His mother stormed in and snatched the phone. "You're in trouble tomorrow." She slammed the door behind her. Danny jumped up and switched on his computer and waited for it to boot up, drumming his fingers impatiently on the desk. When it was ready, he logged onto the instant messenger, but Tucker was offline. He waited a few seconds before a short noise told him that Tucker was online. Tucker couldn't stay conscious long with his computer off.

"you there?" he typed.

"yep. parents?"

"yep. took the phone"

"I figured"

"so what do I do now?"

"just a minute"

Danny waited. He was getting very tired of waiting for things. "I'm going out to a payphone"

"parents will chain you to your bed if ur caught. wait" In several moments, another message appeared.

"there's a free online phone service, but you need a headset"

"I'll get one" Danny leaped up from his chair and stepped cautiously to the door, listening. He didn't hear anything. Hopefully his parents were already asleep. Of course they weren't asleep. It had been about five or ten minutes since his dad had checked on him, and they were always in the lab anyway. He peeked out the door cautiously. He didn't see anyone, and he didn't hear anyone in the kitchen, either. He tiptoed down the stairs, cautiously avoiding or jumping the creaky steps. Halfway down he heard his parents muttering, and his dad saying, "I'll get it." Danny was terrified. He stood, frozen for a moment. Something very obvious occurred to him. "Stupid." He zapped into ghost mode as his father walked up from the lab, past Danny's staircase, and into the kitchen. He had to be more careful, even though Sam, good 'ole Sam who was always so clever about things and always straightened him out even if they didn't always listen and who was always there and even helped that one time when they were sick, even if he could finally have a chance to talk to that same Sam, he had to be more careful about it.

He zoomed down quickly to the lab, easily avoiding his mother's notice by phasing out, grabbed the headset, and returned to his room. "got it"

"good"

Tucker gave him the URL for the software and Danny downloaded it. Tucker made him test it with 411 to make sure the service was good and the software worked. In what Tucker told him was a miracle of modern computing, everything was fine.

"will you b able to listen in?" Danny typed. There was a pregnant pause before the response.

"no. don't know how, don't want to take the time to learn. call Sam and tell me about it after. still want to hear about this afternoon, too"

"sure"

Danny looked at his computer again. He was finally ready. He was finally going to talk to Sam, saintly Sam, Sam Sam Sam. With fingers like rubber, he slowly typed in her number and pressed the enter key. The message on the screen read, "connecting." Random modem noises came through over the headset. Then, a ring. He caught his breath. Another ring.

There was a click. "Hi," a whispered voice, Sam's voice, drifted over the line in a strangely quiet tone he had never heard before. Danny's world stopped spinning at the sound of it.

She sounded like he'd felt back at the docks. "Hey. It's me."

Her voice cracked a little. "Danny?"

"Are you alright?"

"I'm... I don't know. I want to be, you have to believe that I want to be," she protested, still in that quiet voice. "They just, he just..." He heard her take a sharp, deep breath. "The eyes..."

"Oh my God Sam," Danny said, desperate and exasperated. "Sam you have to listen to me. Listen to my voice. They're not real, he's not what he seems..." he grasped at the air for words, searching desperately for a saving turn of phrase. "Jeez, Sam, I've seen him. I know what it's like."

"I'm sorry and I'm so ashamed of myself that I can't fight it," she was sobbing now. Danny grasped the wire of the mouthpiece.

"Listen to me Sam, you have to listen now because I don't know how much time we have, okay?"

Some sniffles. "Okay." He heard something that might have been a laugh. "It's just so good to hear your voice."

"Same here, Sam," he said. There was a moment of silence on the line as each basked in the mere audio presence of the other.

Danny cleared his throat and spoke. "I'm going to tell you how I think you can make it easier to handle. Ready?"

"Yes."

"Alright. I've seen what he looks like-"

"Please don't remind me."

"I won't, but I have to let you know. The... the dark you see there. It looks empty, right? And it has a way of getting into you, of trying to empty you, but it's fake. It's not real."

"It's real enough to me."

"No, that's not what I mean," he stammered. "What I mean is, well, do you remember what things look like outside? Remember the time when we were done catching all the ghosts for the night, and Tucker dropped the thermos, and they all streamed back out? That stupid box ghost-"

"-made fun of us for the 'cylindrical container.'" she finished.

"And how about when I first got my powers, and Tucker got really mad because you replaced the menu with garbage-"

"That was a really healthy, good idea. And it was recyclo-vegetarian, not garbage."

Danny smiled, and it came through in his voice. "-with garbage, and that ghost lunch-lady took you, and me and Tucker found you in the freezer buried in piles of raw meat?"

"That was just... putrid."

"You know how we found you? Tucker followed the meat-smell all the way there."

"That kid does some goofy things, doesn't he?" she marvelled.

"That's why we love 'im."

"Hm."

"How do you feel?"

She hesitated a moment. "Much better, actually."

"So do you see what I mean? Just remember the things you know are real. The good times we had together, what we've come through before, what you'll do when I get you out of there. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, I do, but it's still really hard. I don't know if I can-" That helpless tone began to reappear in her voice.

"No," Danny stopped her firmly. "You do know you can. Those doubts are him talking; I've felt that part of it too. It's a sickness, but not your sickness. You have to be strong until I can spring you." He stopped. "Sam?"

"Yeah, okay. I will." She sighed.

"I need some information. Can you tell me where you are?"

"No, they knocked me out and I woke up here, in a closet. It's got cracks in the door, but it's dark outside too. It's cold, so it's probably somebody's basement or bomb shelter or something. I would have called you earlier, but right away he... it just seemed..."

"It's okay. I understand. How are you, physically?"

"Hungry. They don't feed me, and they give me really bad water to drink." She snorted. "It's always dark. It might not even be water."

"Are you injured?"

"No."

"Thank God. Can you smell anything?"

"No, why?"

Danny breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. The really bad one-"

"Alex. His name is Alex," she stated.

"Yeah, he told me." He paused, wondering for a moment about that point. "You know, it's odd how he says it. You really remember it well."

"Too well. What about the smell?"

"He has a really nasty place he stays and I was worried he was keeping you there. The fumes inside are lethal."

"Charming."

"That's about all I need to know. But Sam, I wanted to say-" he heard a squeak and a bang in the background, probably a door, then a muffled struggle. "Sam!" he shouted in alarm. Sam screamed. "Sam! Are you-"

"What a touching conversation." The voice sent chills up his spine. "So you hear from her that she is basically uninjured."

Danny jumped up from his chair, afraid and furious. "You stop what you're doing to her right now!"

"Danny," he heard her plead faintly.

"Sam!" he yelled desperately, hoping she could hear him. "It's not real Sam, remember it's not real! Remember the real me and you and Tucker!"

"How cliché, how heroic and chivalrous of you, Danny. I can understand why she's in love with you."

Danny spouted a string of expletives, some of which he had heard used in conversation only once or twice. "Stop it right now or I'll-"

"Or you'll what, Danny? Stop me. Meet me in the alley with the thermos and a tea time with your sister. Now girl, where were we?" And the phone clicked off.

Danny clenched the earpiece in his hand, shaking with anger and frustration. "Sam!" he called. He slammed the headset down on his desk and collapsed across his bed. "Sam." He heard his father's fast, angry steps in the hall. He zapped into ghost mode and flew outside as his father stormed into the room.

Jack Fenton took a long look around the room, the glow of the computer its only illumination. He walked over to the monitor. A couple windows were open, one of which looked like a chat program, probably with Tucker. Danny sounded pretty desperate from what he could see. Jack remembered that Danny's yelling hadn't sounded too cheery either. Another window was open with a phone number typed in. Jack looked at Danny's desk and noticed the headset and the scrap of paper. The paper read, "Sam's cell" and gave a number matching that on the screen. Jack looked from one to the other.

"That poor kid," he said, shaking his head. "Girl problems already."

"What's going on, Jack?"

He looked back at the number. "Danny's fine. He just had some music on."

"Well, alright. But I could have sworn that he was yelling..."

"I turned it off," Jack called back. He shut the computer down and left the room.

A/N: So how's that for ya, eh? Didja like it? I sure hope so. I've been taking heavy fire from another story site I post on, so if I sound at all bitter or cynical in the A/Ns here, that's probably why. Oh well. That which doesn't throw you into a screaming rage makes you stronger. X-D Seriously though, comments and constructive criticism are both welcome.


	6. Chapter 6

Saving Sam: Chapter 6

A/N: Whoo! I got a new chapter up. Much thanks to my reviewers: Wiggle Lizard, autumngold, Sakura Scout, and Mrs. Granger-Weasley. Oh, and I have nooz fo' yoos! As of Ch. 7, I am Sakura Scout's beta reader. She's got mad skillz. Check out her 'Untitled Danny Phantom Fanfic' for a good read. On with the show!

Danny raced across the city, searching the streets below. He watched the street lights glow beneath him as he passed overhead. The buildings stood over the streets and alleys as stern, indifferent sentinels of glass and steel, watching with darkened eyes.

Danny glanced up from the city and away toward the docks. He had to find Sam, and he was going to find her tonight. He wasn't going to choose between Sam and Jazz. He would keep both safe. But where to look? Danny remembered Sam's comment about the smell, or lack thereof, and darted down among the clustered buildings. He looked in several lit windows, but their occupants were typically lonely-looking men, a drink in hand and a sitcom on television. Most of the time, the room was empty. Besides, what was he doing looking in lit windows? She'd said it was dark, a basement.

He continued down into the streets. A few bums huddled in the recesses of doorways and loading garages, but there was nothing he could see that was of any use to him. Danny dived beneath the pavement and flew through the ground, ignoring the grungy filth and examining every underground floor he came across. He could feel fatigue creeping through his limbs, and he was vaguely aware of a gnawing in his stomach, but he paid no attention to either. He settled into a fixed pattern: fly through the dirt, look in basement, fly on to the next basement.

When he finally surfaced, the dark sky overhead had lightened to navy blue. Danny pulled himself out of the sidewalk and zapped back to his normal form, resting his back against a mail drop. He was tired beyond belief, and he hadn't found Sam. Danny took another look at the sky. Skyscrapers bound him on the ground, but the sky above them empty and free. With a strong twinge of shock and curiosity, Danny realized that he'd never seen a city sunrise. Danny drifted up into the sky, halting just above the tallest buildings. He looked to the east.

The Sun had just begun to make its presence felt in the eastern sky, a faint halo of orange. The city was beginning to rouse itself, a sleeping beast awakening to nourish and entertain. Danny watched it, feeling very much apart from it all. His friend Sam was down there, somewhere. More than a friend, actually, but she still remained lost.

The city, mindless of Danny's contemplations, continued to awaken. It blinked, and windows brightened with light. It sighed, cars instead of air emerging from underground garages and spilling into the streets. The sky reddened brilliantly in the east, fading off across the sky into orange, neon red, and finally into violet and indigo. The city sat up and stretched as people began passing more thickly on the sidewalk. They left their apartments and returned with mail, coffee, and plastic grocery bags. Danny smiled, seeing that one or two were wandering and weaving down below on the sidewalks. There were his parents' party animals.

The traffic thickened as the east grew brighter. A small spark of the Sun peaked over the cityscape. Clouds nearby burned a brilliant tangerine orange, and the western sky brightened cerulean. The city remained dark compared to the glowing fireworks in the sky. Cars and passers-by traveled in the shadow of the concrete mammoths towering above them, blinded to the nascent day's fireworks. Danny wished that Sam was with him to see it.

Danny took one last look at it before turning to fly home. He still had to scratch together a plan to rescue Sam. His parents would be waiting and he would have to be at school in an hour or so. He frowned and looked away into the horizon. If only he could find the words to say what he meant, to paint a glowing picture of city sunrises, night skies, and happy memories that would show Sam, beyond a doubt, that vivid life was so much greater than a false death.

A/N: Yes, she of the short chapters continues to sit on her rumpus. I have college apps, summer work, and all kinds of crazy crud to catch up on, so cut my lazy self slack. Oh, and drop a review. Reviews are important to keep lazy Rabbyts writing.


	7. Chapter 7

Saving Sam: Chapter 7

Danny began to drop off to sleep on the last leg of his flight. Just outside the city, he nodded off and dipped too low. He awoke a moment too late and slammed into the wall of an office building. It nearly knocked him out, and he hovered a moment, dazed.

He shouldn't be so careless, not with Sam still missing and Alex still out there. She needed his help, and he knew that she probably wasn't sleeping much. He should be back at the docks right now with an offer for Alex, but he still had to think about his sister. He couldn't just send her in blindly; he would have to tell her something first. He should also have a talk with Tucker. But it was getting to be late in the morning and Tucker had probably already left for school and his parents would want to know what was going on...

Danny stopped short and fisted his hands, growling with frustration.

All he wanted to do was save Sam. That was what this had been about from the beginning. Sam mattered now. Other people didn't matter. They weren't in the hands of a sadistic, brainwashing psychopath; Sam was. Danny felt himself locking up with exasperation. He forcibly shoved everything from his mind and tried to think reasonably. Priority 1: Save Sam. To do that, he had to think clearly, and to think clearly he needed a second opinion. He needed to talk to Tucker.

Danny turned himself around and headed off to school. He managed to stay awake without too much difficulty, and he felt better with a definite plan in mind. He returned to his corporeal self in a secluded area out behind the school. He almost collapsed when he felt his weight again and had to steady himself for a moment on the building. Numbed as he was, he enjoyed the rough, flat texture of the brick. He had never really noticed it or appreciated it. He looked over at the wall and looked at the color. It was a natural, coarse burgundy, brightened by a faint orange tint...

Danny caught himself drifting off again and shook himself awake, wondering if he was losing his mind. Probably. He walked around the building to the front yard, trying to see if he could spot Tucker. He saw the normal congregation of football jocks, girls talking, people at benches scribbling away on last night's homework, but no Tucker. He tried the hallway. More jocks, girls, and scribblers. He felt people looking at him. He didn't care much, but he figured it wouldn't hurt to wash up a little as long as he couldn't find Tucker. He went to the bathroom, happy to find it empty. Most kids were coming to school straight from their homes, so they didn't need the school facilities in the morning. Danny splashed some cold water on his face and took a look at himself in the mirror. He immediately saw why people were staring.

The cuts he had acquired from the fight two nights ago still looked ugly, and the bruises had made little progress-if any-in healing since yesterday. He thought it was odd, considering he usually healed within a day. His face had a freshly battered, bruised look to it. Danny was confused for a moment before he remembered kissing wall on his way back from the city. He rolled his eyes and smacked the ceramic sink. He had something like Alex to fight and he was beating himself up running into walls. He heard the first bell ring for class in the hallway but paid no attention to it. His hair was more straggled than usual. He threw some more water on his face and used a paper towel to press water to the more painful scabs and bruises. It was a fresh, relaxing chill against his burning injuries. He walked out to class, not caring if he was late or not.

He had biology first. Danny put took his seat and fell asleep instantly. He was seated in the middle of a row up against the wall, and he was able to sleep through a good deal of the class before his rest was interrupted.

A noise as sharp and loud as thunder flared up around Danny, shaking the lab station he was sleeping on and jarring him awake. He sat up stiffly. Lancer stood in front of Danny's desk looking down on him. His hands grasped a thick, hardbound textbook three inches from where Danny's head had been a moment ago. Danny glanced around, stupefied. Kids in class were laughing and giggling at him. Innocent confusion was replaced by a helpless frustration which melted down into rage. He felt his eyes beginning to gleam emerald, and his foot phased out beneath the desk. Danny wanted to do something that would insure that they never laughed at him again. He clamped his eyes shut and solidified his foot. He couldn't help Sam if he was incarcerated or under a microscope.

He heard Lancer clear his throat. "Ah, try to stay with us, Fenton. This will be on the test." Lancer sounded disconcerted. Danny opened his eyes and saw that he was walking back to the front of the class. Three or four kids were staring at him, but glanced down quickly when they saw him look up. He wondered if they had seen his eyes or if he just looked too mangled to bother with. Either way, he was glad they left him alone, and he went back to sleep. He slept right on through English and algebra, both teachers being far too familiar with such behavior to care about one more unconscious student. In Spanish, he got ten minutes before being awoken.

Somebody nudged him furtively said his name. Danny looked over at the girl next to him, who said "Um" and motioned to the front of his row. Ms. Kaseman glared back at him. For an instant, she reminded him of Lancer, same critical look and shaming posture, but as he raised his head, her eyes widened. She looked him up and down quickly, and her manner softened considerably. "Danny, are you feeling alright?" she asked, concerned.

"No."

"I'm going to send you down to the nurse's office." She walked back to her desk and wrote out a note for him. She gave it to him, and he trudged down to the nurse's office, yawning. The nurse's office was a small side room off the main administration hall. He turned into it at stood in front of the nurse, waiting for her attention. She was busy tapping away at the keyboard, but she took his note and nodded toward the bed.

"Go lie down. I'll be with you in a minute." Danny collapsed finally, gratefully, on a horizontal surface. He waited for a couple minutes, more than a little anxious, while the nurse finished her work at the computer. She gave the keyboard a few final taps and came over to take a look at him. The nurse was a tight-lipped, middle-aged woman who looked as though her sympathy, though genuine, lasted only as long as her shift. She inspected him with concern, noting his damaged face and the bruises on his arms. "Any more?" He nodded and lifted his shirt for her inspection. She whistled. "What happened to you?"

Danny muttered something unintelligible.

"What was that?"

"I can't tell you. Can you do anything for it?"

"Well I can, but I'll also have to call your parents unless you want to tell me about it." Danny shook his head. She sighed. "All right. I'll give you some antibiotics and clean you up, then I'll call your parents." She walked over to a cupboard and pulled out bottles, patches, and other sundry medical supplies. "You just relax and try to sleep. I'll let you know when your parents get here."

Danny lifted his head and looked at the clock. He still had about twenty minutes until lunch time, more than enough to catch some sleep and get lunch before his parents arrived. "Wake me up for lunch. I'm pretty hungry." She started on his arms, and he relaxed into the cot. It felt so good to have somebody actually taking care of him. It felt better than good; it felt safe. He leaned back as the pain, stress, and desperation of his long day and night pressed him into unconsciousness.

"Thanks," he mumbled.

"No problem."

A/N: Thanks to all who reviewed: Sakura Scout, Wiggle Lizard, Mrs. Granger-Weasley, autumngold, and The Fuzy Llama. You are all very cool. I am tired. My auto-shop teacher is... mentally disabled (seriously), my AP English teacher has bad grammar, and my AP econ teacher admits that he is very very, very very very lazy. This year should be interesting. I'll save the rest of my rants for the profile. Drop a review and I'll see ya'll next chapter!


	8. Chapter 8

Saving Sam: Chapter 8

The nurse woke Danny to the sound of bustling footsteps and hurried, last-minute conversations. "Go on over to the cafeteria if you want something, but come right back here. Your parents should be here in ten minutes." The nurse grabbed a file from off her desk and walked to the door. He sat up and stretched, and the nurse paused in the doorway. "You know, we have a special services counselor on campus if you need to talk about something. There's help available if you need it."

"Okay," he said, and she left him alone. He stood up and stretched, displacing some of the patches on his abdomen. He took a look at himself in a hand mirror on her desk and was happy to see that he'd been bandaged or given antibiotic ointment. At least he wouldn't die of an infection. He hurried out the door and up to the cafeteria to find Tucker.

Danny spotted Tucker in the lunch line and got in it several people behind him. "Tucker!"

Tucker looked around and found Danny.

"Meet me outside on the bench."

Tucker nodded. "We have to talk."

"I know." Danny waited, watching Tucker order and head outside. Danny's turn came up, and the lunch lady shoved a Styrofoam tray at him with limp fries, a vacuum-sealed peanut-butter cookie, and a dried, wrinkled hamburger that crouched in the corner like a fat, rabid gerbil. Danny was hungry enough that it looked and smelled like heaven itself. He cleared his throat. "Uh, can I have two?"

The lunch lady glanced up. "Eh?"

"Can I have another lunch?"

She shrugged and gave him another tray. Danny walked over to the cashier, and the student working it totaled it up. He dug in his pocket and his eyes bugged out. He checked his other pocket. The cashier stared at him impatiently and repeated the price. Danny turned to the kid behind him. "Do you-"

"No." Danny checked his back pockets, clumsily stacking his trays on the register table.

The cashier rolled his eyes. "Why would you even get in line if you don't have any money?"

"I forgot. Can I give you an IOU?"

"You and every other deadbeat in here. C'mon," he said, holding out his hands. "Hand 'em over."

"Can't I just-"

"Thanks." The cashier grabbed Danny's lunches and threw them in a nearby trash can. "Next."

Danny stuttered a moment. "You just-"

"Next," the cashier repeated with a warning look.

The kid behind Danny gave him a shove. "Move it."

Danny walked out of line, angry and very hungry. He walked outside, and Tucker waved. Danny returned it and held up a finger. One more thing. He walked around the building and suited up when nobody was looking. He darted back in the lunchroom, invisible, and grabbed two lunches. The lunch lady jumped and gave a little gasp as two trays began to float away, and several students stumbled backwards. He picked up a couple of chocolate milks from the coolers and went back outside, changing back to normal and joining Tucker.

"Did you steal those lunches?" Tucker asked.

"Mmm-hm." Danny had his face full of burger. Tucker watched him eat for a moment, looking him over.

"When was the last time you ate?" Danny shrugged. "How about sleep?"

Danny swallowed. "I got about three hours during school."

"Did you get in another fight?"

"Nope. Hit a wall flying," he said around a massive bite of the second burger.

Tucker gave him a worried look. "You need to slow down."

"I'm really hungry."

"Not about that, about all this, whatever this is." Tucker leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. Danny listened with only half an ear, focusing the bulk of his attention on lunch. "I worry about Sam too. I was up late looking for her after you left." Danny glanced up. Tucker did look a little on the tired side. "I went home and called her in missing to the police and got them to say they'd look into it." He looked across at Danny and shook his head. "I'm starting to worry about you too. You're a lot worse than you were yesterday. What happened? Did he do something to you?"

Danny shrugged. "Sort of."

"Well, what was it?" Tucker sighed. "I know you like Sam-" Danny glanced up defensively. "But draining yourself isn't going to help her. She's probably somewhere unpleasant, but she's tough. She can hold up."

Danny shook his head, eyes wide. "No, it's not like that. He's draining her. She has no time. I don't have time; I shouldn't even be here goofing around when-"

"Stop." Tucker commanded. Danny shut up. "Tell me what's happening, starting from yesterday when you and Mr. Sassy and Ugly left."

Danny sighed, and he ate more slowly as he talked. "Sam's in big trouble, Tucker. That thing we were talking to-"

"The ghost yesterday. It wanted a hostage exchange."

"Right. Its name is Alex, and it's not what it seems. You saw it when we were talking to it, right?"

"Yeah..."

"Didn't look too bad. Unusual aura, big mouth and too much confidence, maybe a good fighter, but nothing else, right?"

"I didn't get much of a look at it, but yeah, okay. So?"

"So it's a lot more than that, Tucker. It has these eyes..." Danny stumbled for words. "These eyes that see right into you and make you feel like there's nothing else, only these big, black, empty eyes and no hope or good things." Tucker was looking at him oddly, and Danny grunted in frustration. "I can't explain it very well."

"No, but I get the idea. So what did it want?"

"It-" Something caught his eye, and Danny glanced behind Tucker through the lunch windows and saw the nurse talking to the lunch lady. "We have to move somewhere, now. The nurse is after me."

They stood up and walked quickly around the front of the lunchroom and around behind the building. Danny led Tucker to the same corner he had used for the lunch escapade and grabbed his arm, turning both of them turned invisible. "Isn't there a cafe a couple blocks over?" he asked. Tucker nodded.

They walked around and through the school, passing Danny's parents' car on the sidewalk, and continued through intersections, cars, and pedestrians. They rematerialized in an apartment doorway next to the cafe.

Tucker grinned. "That was fun."

Danny nodded, letting himself smile. "Yeah, it's not too bad." In the cafe, Tucker ordered a soda, and Danny got a bottle of milk and a candy bar. The woman at the counter, an officious, wrinkled waitress, looked down her nose at them.

"Shouldn't you two be in school?"

Tucker shook his head, paying. "We have an open campus. We get to leave for lunch."

"Really?"

"No," Danny said, grabbing their goods off the counter. She gave them a snooty, dirty look, and they both snickered and went outside.

"So, what else did he want?" Tucker asked again, once they were both seated and comfortable on the cafe's plastic chairs.

"He said he wanted to know what was wrong with him. He wants-"

"Wait a minute. He wants to know what's wrong with him?" Tucker asked. Danny nodded. "What does that have to do with us?"

"Remember when I had just finished fighting those jerks-"

"Uh-huh..."

"And I saw my breath when I came back to talk to you-"

"Yeah..."

"And you said something about my sister being a psychologist instead of a medical doctor?"

"You've gotta be kidding me."

"No kidding. He wants to talk to Jazz."

"Jeez Danny, I'm really sorry. That was extremely stupid."

Danny shrugged. "We had no idea who was listening. Let me tell you about the rest of it. He says he won't hurt her but that if I don't deliver, he'll kill me and everyone who knows me, including the family, if he finds them. He gave me three days."

Tucker was silent for a moment. Neither of them touched their food. "He's bluffing," Tucker said.

Danny shook his head.

"Well, we still have two days to look for her, and we can use Jazz as a last resort."

"Sam doesn't have two days, Tucker."

Tucker glanced up, indignant. "Why not? She's pretty tough, and we can probably find her before-"

"No, we can't. I've looked through half the city. Nothing. And I called her..." he drifted off, shaking his head.

"And?" Tucker prompted.

"Well, she was a mess. I think I might have bought her some time, but I don't know how much or if it was even enough..." He wasn't being clear, and Tucker was giving him a skeptical look. "What I mean is, she's falling apart. I told you about those eyes, and he's using them on her and I don't know what's going to happen to her if we don't get to her soon."

"I don't know what you mean, but if you're sure, I'll trust you. Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Alright." Tucker leaned back in his chair. "Then we have to talk to Jazz."

Danny didn't say anything for a minute. Jazz was his sister. He admired her intelligence and academic prowess. Kids at school respected her for who she was; she didn't need any kind of special powers to make her exceptional. Besides, she trusted him, and he trusted her. He had nearly told her about his powers on more than one occasion.

"She's my sister," he mumbled. "Isn't there something else we can do? Something we missed?"

"Danny, if you're sure of all the things you told me, the next thing to do is to talk to Jazz."

"Alright," he mumbled.

"What are you going to tell her?"

"I don't know." He stood and tossed his garbage in a can. "Let's go. We can wait at her car. I know where she parks."

Tucker followed Danny back to school. Neither of them spoke. They circled around it, passing around the back lot. The brick building, which for several months had instructed Danny, Tucker, and Sam, for better or for worse, stood facing away from them. A muffled hubbub escaped from its windows as kids got impatient, the bell about to ring. Teachers tried to keep them seated, quiet, and orderly, but the last few minutes were usually sacrificed to idle chattering and joking. On their way around back to the parking lot, Tucker and Danny slowed to listen to the hubbub in which they had so often taken part. Tucker looked down to stare at the pavement. Danny twitched.

They came to the lot, a neatly paved rectangle of tar capable of holding about sixty cars. Danny and Tucker wound their way towards Jazz's car, a small, two-door affair. Danny leaned up against it, crossed his arms, and waited, watching the school thoughtfully. Tucker stood a few feet away. After a nervous glance at Danny, he pulled out his palm pilot and loaded a game. Several moments later, the school bell rang. There was a moment of calm before the storm, but in a moment the school erupted, pouring forth the next generation in swearing, laughing, and arguing torrents. Some stopped to talk in the front, others drifted towards the parking lot, and yet another group of kids rushed to their buses. Tucker watched the traffic back up on the street as kids sauntered across, mindless of the crosswalk and the drivers' dirty looks. Earlier in the year, Tucker remembered, there had been much more honking, gesturing, and shouting, all of which had delighted the targets. By now the drivers, mostly freshman parents, had learned that nothing they did would move the herd any faster and had either decided to put up with it or introduced their children to the bus system. Tucker found the thought encouraging.

Danny remained pensive. He stared away over the top of the school, watching a wispy cloud amble lazily across the sky.

Jazz appeared at the back door after a quarter of an hour. She waved back to someone inside, then allowed the door to close and walked quickly over to the lot. Danny watched her, and Tucker glanced over at Danny. He wore an expression of thoughtful despair, with sunken eyes shining out from a drooping face. Jazz stopped and checked her bag for something, rummaging inside it for a moment, smiled, and continued. She spotted Danny and waved to him. Danny sat up a little straighter and raised his hand in acknowledgement. She walked over to meet them.

"Hey, do you guys need a ride?"

"No thanks." Danny opened his mouth, closed it, and shuffled his feet a bit. "I, ah, need to ask you for a favor."

"Sure. What is it?" She took a closer look at him, noticing his somber expression, the bruises, and a patch of cotton on his arm. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah yeah, I'm fine," he said. "I need you to talk to somebody for me. I mean, they want to talk to you." Danny looked over to Tucker, who gave him an encouraging nod. "There's a kid, a, um..." How old had the ghost looked? Nineteen? Ninety? "...senior, who wants to talk to you about some problems he has."

Jazz looked at her little brother critically. His face was drawn up in a pleading, self-abasing grimace. Deep dark circles were etched beneath his worried, sad eyes. She'd known her brother to be furious, distraught, frustrated, and disappointed, but the countenance he now presented made everything before seem histrionic, and it surprised and scared her. She knew about his secret life, and if what he was talking about had anything to do with it, she knew that she had to be very careful. She realized that he was asking her for a favor he wanted her to refuse.

"I don't know," she said, testing the ground. "I'm pretty busy with school right now."

"Oh." Danny looked at the ground. Tucker cleared his throat. "Well, it's kind of important for him, and me too," he looked up desperately. "If you could do it."

"Danny." He met her eyes. Jazz continued, trying to be as delicate as possible. "I know you're not at home a lot, and I think you might be mixed up in some bad business." He fidgeted and shifted his weight. "If this is serious, I need to know what you're doing before I get into it."

Danny's voice broke. "I'm sorry Jazz, I can't tell you all that's going on but I need you to do this one thing for me." He stopped a moment before continuing in a low voice, speaking more to himself than to her. "I'm juggling people here. I have to keep everything going, and I don't know this will end. I'll... I'll pay for it myself if I have to, but I'm going to protect others, and right now to do that I have to involve you or I won't be able to save anyone." Danny looked up at Jazz. "I'm sorry."

Jazz returned his pleading gaze with one of uncertainty. She wasn't sure that he was still thinking rationally. His speech and his physical appearance certainly seemed to suggest that. She glanced over at Tucker for a second opinion. Tucker inclined his head towards Danny and gave a little shrug.

"Have you told Mom and Dad? You know, they've been checking around for you-"

"-in between their stupid experiments-" Danny flared.

"-since the day before yesterday," Jazz finished, peeved.

"They can't know about this. The fewer who know, the fewer I risk."

Jazz tried again. "They might even be able to invent something-"

"Not with this one."

"And time is important here too," Tucker put in, speaking for the first time.

Jazz looked over at them both again and counted two where there should have been three. She had heard quite a bit of yelling last night, not a little of it concerning the third musketeer. "Is this about Sam?"

Danny hesitated. "Yes."

"Well what's-"

"Sam's kind of a touchy subject right now, Jazz," Tucker interrupted.

"Okay," she said, considering it. "And all I would have to do is talk to it."

"Yeah, but don't say 'it.' Say 'he.' He told me not to warn you and if he finds out that I've told you... bad things might happen. His name is Alex," Danny added as an afterthought.

She leaned against the car next to him. She thought about his sunken, desperate expression, his secrecy, and about the inherently risky things he insisted on doing regularly. She shouldn't touch this business with a ten-foot pole. She looked at another angle of it, though: even though he had been an annoyance when they were both younger, even though he wasn't exceptionally clever or wise, he was essentially a good, ethical guy. And he was her little brother who needed her help.

"Alright, I'll do it." Danny breathed a sigh, part shame and part relief. "When?" she asked.

"I don't know yet. I have to talk to him."

"Alright, but are you going to be okay?"

Danny looked out at her from those sunken eyes gave her a twisted, strained smile that aroused her deepest fears as an aspiring psychologist. "Yes." She didn't move. "Really. Tuck and I have things to do. You can go and I'll get back to you about it." She glanced over at Tucker again.

He wasn't comfortable either, but he nodded for her to go. "I'll watch out for him."

Jazz waited a moment longer, wavering between her good sense and their right to privacy. "Alright," she said finally. She walked around to the driver's door and got in. "I want you to check in with me by eight tonight, at least," she said. "And I'll be at home if you need anything at all." Jazz started the car and drove away, turning onto the congested roadway.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Tucker grabbed Danny's shoulders. "You need to get it together, right here, right now." He'd never seen Danny look like that. Danny was a strong, healthy, good-hearted and heroic friend. Danny did not grin like a death's head.

"I just sold out my sister for my girlfriend."

"I don't care if you were Adolph Hitler's second cousin. Get it together."

Danny felt like he was floating away. Just like Sam must be... He snapped alert and tried to pull himself out of the rising darkness, a curtain that seemed to shatter his crystal reason and seal about his brain. He couldn't escape it. He really had sold out his sister for his girlfriend. He had sold a loved one to a predator in exchange for someone who might be just a passing infatuation-

He stopped. If there was one thing he knew, it was that Sam meant the world and more to him. But still, he had sold her out, no, he had sold Jazz out-

Tucker shook him again and called his name. Danny focused all his attention on Tucker's grip. It was a strong, grasping hold, spawned from a panicked anger. He felt tiny muscles in Tucker's hand adjust and readjust as his grip softened. Tucker had the uncalloused fingers of a typist, and they were cold against Danny's collarbone.

Danny realized that a breeze was blowing, and it left him chilled. Uncomfortably so. He concentrated on the sensation of being cold. He had never really thought about it before, but when he considered it, the cold didn't seem too bad at all. It was unpleasant, but it was also interesting. It was an annoying, nipping sensation, like having an aggressive beagle about one's ankles. He realized that Tucker had let go of him.

"How are you doing?"

Danny heaved a sigh. "Better." Tucker saw a little, genuine smile from the Danny he knew. "Let's go do whatever it is we were going to do next."

"Are you sure? We could go relax for a half hour or so, you know, just kind of hang out, see if we can get you away from the brink of insanity. That sort of thing."

"Sorry Tucker. Sam's still in trouble, and I've still got to help her out."

"You can't help her if you put yourself out of commission."

"But if I don't help her soon I may not be able to help her at all." Danny looked at the sky, watching clouds and pulling together his memory. "So, next we should talk to good ole' Alex?"

"Yep." Tucker thought Danny seemed too relaxed. He wished that Danny would just pick one neurosis and stick with it.

"Hmm..." Danny looked over at Tucker. "I have to go by myself."

"Why?" Tucker demanded.

"He wants me to meet him at his place. It's got chemical fumes in it that would kill you."

"I'll wear a gas mask."

"No you won't. I can get there faster if I go by myself, and he would probably just as soon kill you as look at you."

"I'll risk it." Danny began to protest, but Tucker cut him off. "You've been doing way too much on your own, and now it's my turn to help you out." Danny frowned at him. Tucker was happy to see him getting worked up about something. "If you don't take me, I'll run after you and call out that Alex ghost myself."

Danny looked at him. Tucker looked a sincere challenge back. "Okay," Danny relented. "We'll swing by my house for stuff, see if we can get you something." He thought a moment. "I'll fly us both over. It's faster, and my parents won't see us if we're invisible."

"Are you strong enough for that? You're still pretty beat up."

"Sure, I can do it."

Hearing the confidence in his voice, Tucker believed that Danny could indeed do it. "Ready when you are."

Danny transformed and grabbed Tucker's wrist for the second time that day. Tucker felt himself become weightless as they rose into the air, Danny towing him along. They accelerated toward the suburbs, and Tucker felt the wind roaring right on through him, and buildings stood up like Tetris blocks below. Too soon they arrived at the Fenton residence. They drifted through the topsoil and into the lab below. Danny put a finger to his lips, and Tucker nodded. Both of Danny's parents were in the lab.

His father was bent over a little remote-control, making some fine adjustments with a needle-thin probe. His workstation was littered with bits of metal, bolts, thin curls of scrap metal, and drops of ectoplasm. His mother worked at a drafting table, meticulously drawing a scale model for some nascent invention. Neither spoke, and both wore distracted, worried expressions when they looked up from their work. Danny winced.

He looked around the lab. Nothing was flashing or beeping, yet. He pointed out a metal storage cupboard on the opposite wall, then up. Tucker looked confused, but he nodded for Danny to do it anyway. Danny pulled them both back into the wall, up and over the ceiling of the lab. They emerged from the opposite wall next to the cupboard. He reached in and pulled out a gas mask then flew back up to the sidewalk and rematerialized. "See if this fits."

---

Jazz saw them outside on her way home and pulled over half a block down, rolling down her window. She watched Tucker fit something black over his face-a gas mask-and nod to Danny. Danny said something to him that she couldn't hear, then did his little disappearing trick for a moment and returned with one of the heavy lead radiation vests her parents sometimes used. He gave it to Tucker, who examined it before putting it on awkwardly under his shirt.

"That's just great," she muttered.

Danny said something, but Tucker shook his head and insisted on something else. She saw Danny make a slight rolling motion with his head, and she smiled, familiar enough with the look to know that he was also rolling his eyes and trying to convey the obvious logic of whatever he was trying to sell. It didn't look to her like Tucker was buying it. He disappeared again as Tucker started to dart off, but something stopped him, and Tucker struggled with something behind him. Jazz raised her eyebrows. He'd never pulled that one on her before. Tucker was trying to defend his backpack, but after a couple seconds he stopped struggling and merely stood and fumed. Jazz smiled. Whatever they had been arguing about, Danny's posture had looked much better than back at school, and that was good. An argument showed assertiveness, which was also good. Of course, she considered, Danny was also arming Tucker like a storm trooper, and that was decidedly bad.

Presently Danny returned again. Tucker said something with a sour expression. Danny shrugged and talked some more, then he grabbed Tucker and they both disappeared. She waited a few minutes, and when they didn't reappear she started the car and pulled the rest of the way up the block to find a spot nearer to the house, thoughtfully considering the disposition of her brother. Danny was obviously starting to sink, but he must have found something he could hold onto that would keep him afloat. She remembered his earlier expression at school and shuddered. She jumped out of the car and walked to the front door, anxious. Whatever he was now holding onto, she hoped that he was holding on tight.

A/N: Thanks much, once again, to all my reviewers: Mrs. Granger-Weasley, Sakura Scout, autumngold, and cheerin4danny. Stay tuned. Chapter 9 will debut in a couple days!  
Yes, Danny isn't healing because of the psychological stress. I won't expound on it here, but I'll be posting a note in my profile that relates to this point. I suggest that all authors and inquisitive readers take a look at it, since it'll reveal a "secret" writing strategy of mine as well as give notice of a challenge that will test your skills in literary analysis. All smart people-even those of you too modest to admit it-go check it out!


	9. Chapter 9

Saving Sam: Chapter 9

A/N: Thanx to my reviewers: Sakura Scout, Wiggle Lizard, autumngold, Mrs. Granger-Weasley, and cheerin4danny. **Important marvelous updating notice!** There will be daily updates until the Rabbyt's Joyous Day of Existence Celebration, traditionally called September 15. Be here! In other news, Wiggle asked about the wincing and the twitching. Danny does that because he's stressed out and/or exhausted clean out of his mind, and most people do a lot of twitching and wincing in those circumstances.

Danny felt Tucker glowering behind him as they flew. "I still say we should have taken the thermos."

"Even if we caught him, there would still be two more out there. And what if Alex stole it? Those two buddies of his are our only leverage, and if we lost them we might never see Sam again."

"More people than Sam are being put at risk."

"You really don't have to remind me of that, Tucker." Danny felt a Cerberus of doubt, worry, and condemnation stir inside. He paid close attention to where they were headed and watched the afternoon light play on the windows of the city buildings. The mental disturbance died down after a moment.

"Alright." Tucker glanced around at the city. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"The docks. Pier 17. Here's what I think we should do. You put on the mask, and I'll stand next to you on the floor. I don't want to let you phase in if I can help it, but if I have to let go, at least you won't fall and you'll have the mask." He glanced back. "Sound good?"

"Yeah. You could probably let go of me, though. It can't be that bad."

Danny gave a thin laugh. "No, Tucker, this place really is that bad. It's amazing how well it suits him."

They flew on for several more minutes before they came to the docks. Tucker whistled, incredulous. "You weren't kidding."

Danny wrinkled his nose and frowned. Pendulous clouds hung from the sky, blunting the sunlight and making the water seem dirtier, more viscous. "It looks worse than the last time I was here." He looked up and down the waterfront. "Come on. It's over this way."

They came to the warehouse. It squatted on the dirty, cracked pavement, lugubrious and ambivalent to their predicament.

Tucker recoiled at the sight of it. "It's in there?" Danny nodded. "Can't we just call it out?"

"We're going in, Tucker." He pulled them both through the roof, meeting that bitter chemical stench once again. Danny shouted for Alex, but his voice was dulled and absorbed by the rotted wood. Tucker adjusted the lead vest with his free hand. Five minutes passed, then ten. They had searched the place and were on the verge of leaving when a wisp of blue drifted from Danny's mouth. An instant later, a black, malignant aura emerged from below the floor, followed closely by a figure. It was Alex.

He frowned in displeasure. "You've brought your friend. I told you not to do that."

"He's my best friend, and I'll bring him if I want."

The ghost glanced between the two of them. It brought its head up sharply, giving them a cunning smile. "Just so you know what's at stake." Danny was watching its eyes closely, ready to warn Tucker at the first sign of blackness. So far, they remained that same piercing green.

"Do you have news for me?"

Danny nodded. "Jazz has agreed to see you. We could meet later today and exchange hostages, then you could talk to her."

"No."

"No?" Danny said. Tucker discreetly adjusted his vest again.

"No. You've brought your little mortal lackey and now I'm postponing it to tomorrow."

"I did my part-" Danny sputtered.

"But you didn't follow the rules." The ghost showed him that same smug grin which had so infuriated him last time. "Besides, I'm not quite finished yet with your friend. Some of her mind still remains intact." A shard of darkness shot through his eyes.

Danny felt an explosion of indignation and denial. He scrambled to keep himself together, to keep from screaming and fighting and crying. Must stay strong for Sam must stay strong for Sam must stay strong for Sam...

Tucker snorted. "What is it you're doing to her, anyway?"

"Would you like to see?"

"Shut your eyes, Tucker!"

Tucker did, but not before he got a better look than he needed. At Danny's warning, Tucker gasped and jerked an arm up in front of his face. It was the arm Danny had been holding. Tucker phased back into existence and coughed in his mask at the smell. Danny snatched his arm and phased him out again.

Alex chuckled. "Well, I'll leave you two to your own devices. Meet me tomorrow at noon at Stacey's Cafe." With that, he slid back through the floor.

Danny rushed after Alex, being careful not to let go of Tucker again. He searched the earth frantically for any wind of blue from his mouth or any trace of Alex, but the ghost had vanished.

Danny and Tucker walked back along the streets in the late afternoon sun. Tucker tried to start some upbeat conversation about their chances not really being the pathetic, struggling, dying things they actually were, but neither of them had the energy or imagination to sustain such a dialogue. At a cross street, they parted ways, and as Danny walked one way and Tucker walked another, Danny looked up for a moment. Twilight had come quickly, and the brightest stars and planets peeped onto the road from the azure sky. He walked slowly, thinking idly of his good times with Sam, Jazz, at school, his family. Sam.

He zapped into ghost mode before entering his house. He didn't want any unintentional run-ins with his parents. He went up to Jazz's room in human form to let her know about the meeting. She was working on her homework when he knocked, and she called him in. He told her about the appointment, and she nodded.

"Are you doing any better?"

He leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his legs. "I'm doing just peachy."

She gave him a sympathetic look. "Well, alright. I'll be there. Just don't burn yourself out."

He left her room and flew down to the kitchen. He grabbed food out of the refrigerator and flew up to his room to eat. Keeping the lights out, Danny sat back in his computer chair and munched on leftover pizza and a box of Cheez-Its. He turned on the computer and played a distracted game of solitaire. After a half hour of it, he closed the game and took out some ruled paper from a desk drawer, preparing to write a letter. Working slowly, Danny went through several drafts, crumpling them and shooting into the wastebasket, stopping to think many times and blinking furiously, before he finally finished.

Dear Mom and Dad,

I want you both to know that I love you. I'm sorry I didn't listen to you or take you seriously. I went somewhere I shouldn't have even after someone warned me, and now something has started that I don't know how to stop. I don't know if I'm coming back from where I'm going, because I have to go help someone. I want you both to know that you were right, ghosts exist, and the portal turned me into one of them, halfway. I'm sorry I never told you about it. I want you to know that Jazz helped me out a lot. If she doesn't come back, I'm sorry, because that's mostly my fault too. If she does, and I hope to God that she does, she gets all my stuff. Tucker gets my computer, if he comes back.

You guys have to take me very seriously here. If any of us come back-Sam, Tucker, me, or Jazz-ask them how it went and take them seriously. If none of them come back, move. There will be something coming after you, and if it can find you IT WILL KILL YOU. Please believe me. I'm sorry if I never told you what I was, I'm sorry I never listened to you, but listen to me and MOVE before it gets you.

Your son,

Danny Fenton


	10. Chapter 10

Saving Sam: Chapter 10

A/N: Thanks much to all reviewers: autumngold, Sakura Scout, The Cheryl One, cheerin4danny, and Wiggle Lizard. I give you another evil short chapter. Ah, but after this, the deluge.

---

Danny woke up, startled into consciousness by his alarm. He looked at the clock. It was already ten o'clock. He would see Sam at twelve o'clock. Danny jumped up and threw on some clothes. He checked around for Jazz, not knowing what more he could say to her if he found her, but she was gone, probably at school. He gulped a brunch of cereal and pop-tarts had flown halfway to Tucker's house before he remembered the thermos. He dashed back for it and eventually arrived on Tucker's porch.

Tucker answered the door. "You ready?" Danny asked.

"No. Are you?" Danny shook his head. He was smiling broadly, but his eyes stared wide and panicked. "Danny, why don't we walk this time? You've been in ghost mode too much these days."

Danny shrugged and zapped back to his normal human self. Tucker lingered in the doorway. "Should we get anything other than the thermos?"

"We'll probably only get one shot with whatever we use on him. The thermos is our best bet."

Tucker considered this. "OK. Let's go."

Neither said anything on the walk to Stacy's Cafe. Both were thinking about Sam. Tucker hoped that she was still alive. He had been through a good deal with her in the midst of Danny's adventures. She was a good friend, if a little too idealistic at times.

Danny too couldn't help himself from wondering if Sam was alive, and if she was alive, if she had been able to hold out against Alex. Every once in a while, he forced himself to stop thinking about it and look around, but the reality that had comforted him seemed to have taken a day off. In the light of Sam's imminent return, reality seemed hollow, an ally that had retreated to the sidelines to cheer but not to aid.

They came to the cafe. Tucker checked his palm pilot for the time, and the bright display, blissfully unaware that lives hung in the balance, faithfully reported that it was eleven forty-nine. They sat at a table. Danny looked at his hands. He flexed them, watching the tendons stand out and retreat back. He fisted them. It didn't matter what the ghost had done to Sam; he would restore her. It didn't matter how his feelings for her had changed, they wouldn't distract him. It didn't matter if a fight broke out that destroyed half the city. This was about saving Sam, and he was ready to give up everything to make sure she came back.

Tucker saw Danny's face harden. He opened his mouth to ask if he was alright or if he wanted anything, but he thought better of it. Tucker returned to playing with his PDA in silence.

Jazz showed up at eleven fifty-four. She walked over to their table and sat down.

"Whatever happens," she said, touching Danny's shoulder. "I trust you and I'll support you, and if anything bad happens I'll never blame you."

He looked up at her, searching her face for sarcasm. Satisfied, he nodded. "Thank you, Jazz."

A blue mist curled up from Danny's mouth at twelve o'clock exactly.


	11. Final Chapter

Saving Sam: Final Chapter

A/N: "I sing to life and to its tragic beauty, to pain and to strife and all that dances through me." -_Canto Alla Vita_, Josh Groban

Alex sauntered towards their table. Tucker noticed that he was almost solid, and the glowing black aura about him had been reduced to a light fuzz, only noticeable if one was looking for it. The ghost was clothed in black: trench coat, slacks, boots, and a fedora.

Danny didn't notice any of these things. He jumped up, meeting Alex when he was still ten paces from the table. "Where's Sam?"

"My companions, first."

Without breaking eye contact, Danny slung the thermos off his shoulders and released the two ghosts. They streamed into the afternoon sky and vanished. "Where's Sam?"

"You'll find her in an alley several stores over from this cafe."

Danny sprinted away in the direction Alex had pointed. Tucker jumped up to follow him.

"Tucker! You have to stay." Danny fired the thermos at him like a football, making Tucker scramble to catch it. "Watch them!"

"But I-"

"Watch my sister!"

Tucker hesitated a moment, looking after Danny. He sighed and turned back to the table. Alex sat down with Jazz, who had not taken her eyes off him. "Join us?" Alex asked.

Tucker pulled up a chair at a nearby table. "I'll be over here." Jazz coughed emphatically. "I'll have a better shot over here," Tucker protested. "If anything starts to happen, I'll stop it." He held the thermos in his lap, finger ready on the button.

Jazz turned back to Alex, who looked across the table at her, reclining in his chair. He shifted his feet and folded his hands behind his head. Neither of them said anything. She realized with a start that Alex was also nervous, and she folded her hands neatly on the table. If she could read him well enough to know that, this might go off much more easily than she expected.

"Danny said you wanted to talk to me?"

Alex cleared his throat and sat up. "Yes. I don't want to dawdle," he said, glancing over to the alley, where Danny had paused. "So I'll get right down to it. Sometimes I do things, and I don't quite know why, but I enjoy them."

"What things?"

"Well, I kill or maim people and then, basically, drive them to insanity. I don't need it for sustenance, but I enjoy it quite a bit."

Jazz was looking at Alex in shock. He smirked back at her. She gave her head a little shake, clearing it. She should just treat this like an exercise in one of those psychology books. Keep it impersonal.

She continued calmly. "When did this start?"

He looked at the sky, thinking. "I really don't know, exactly. I think it was when I was still alive."

"Okay," she said nodding, considering how to proceed. "What was life like for you?"

"I can't really remember much. I was frustrated, and people never listened to me..." he trailed off. His eyes flickered over to Tucker. Jazz groaned inwardly. He was getting self-conscious. The whole macho-guy thing was getting in the way, as it usually did with boys she tried to help.

"Do you want to continue?"

"Yes." His eyes shifted back to her, burning with sincerity.

"What did you talk about?"

"I don't know. Philosophy. Science. Literature. They never listened. They wanted to talk about sit-coms and sports and drugs and any number of mindless things." He gritted his teeth, his breath hissing out through them.

Jazz was stunned. She knew exactly what he was talking about. She herself felt the same frustration whenever she tried to talk about psychology and less intelligent friends could only nod and smile or change the topic.

"They were too stupid to understand a word I said," Alex said. He looked up at her. "Do you understand?"

"Yes." But she didn't kill people. Why had he killed people? She searched her mind for prior cases involving violence. Cutters. Anorexics. Suicides. Such behavior was typically seen by the individual as a last resort, and those instances told her what to say next.

Alex had been waiting for her patiently while she thought, and he paid close attention when she spoke. She took it as a good sign. "Why did you hurt them?"

"It was the only way..." he looked up defensively. "I tried! I remember... I think I tried to start a club for intellectuals, can't remember what specifically... I tried to go to other groups around the city, I tried any number of things but they couldn't hold a decent, intelligent conversation with me anywhere." Jazz thought she saw his eyes change for a second, but dismissed it as a trick of the light. She knew she was on the right track now.

"So what did you do?"

"I got angry. I started hurting people. Just minor things at first, a punch or jab." He smirked. "Then I started waiting in the parking lot with a knife." She saw his eyes change again, and this time there was no doubt that the change was authentic. His eyes were beaming a solid, empty black, and they were aimed, reaching, grasping out at her. It was disconcerting, but she knew what had gone wrong with him and how to deal with it, so she pressed on.

"Why did you hurt people initially?"

Those eyes seemed to grow. "I told you. I was frustrated with them. They were just too damn stupid..." he seethed.

"Yes... but just for kicks, let's say I didn't understand how those two things were connected. I assume you understand logic? Geometrical proofs? Lay it out like that for me."

He struggled with it for a moment. "It's obvious. I was angry, and they were the source of it."

"What could they have done to satisfy you?"

He sputtered. "They could have gotten... ambition; they could have studied..."

"It's a scientific fact that some people will always be more intelligent than others." She backed off, but only slightly. "You strike me as someone smart enough to realize that."

"Yes..." he hissed. Those eyes boiled. Black tendrils seemed to be stretching out of the corners. She tried to take a closer look without attracting his attention. Tendrils were stretching out at the corners. She glanced a warning at Tucker, who nodded and tightened his grip on the thermos.

"Okay." She waited a moment before going on. "What does it mean when an individual is unsatisfied with his environment?"

His voice dropped dangerously low. "It means... that the individual must rectify the environment."

The darkness in those eyes grew and grew around her. It spread up and down Alex's form until his aura was saturated with it. Tendrils reached lazily at her from his eyes.

The ghost spoke, but its voice was no longer smooth and calm. It rasped and echoed, ageless and potent. "Finish it."

Jazz understood that she was no longer speaking to Alex. The brittle voice emanated from the darkness oozing out of his eyes. Her mind raced. The ghost Alex had never been in control. Maybe Alex the human had, but not his ghost. The ghost had become nothing more than a willing vessel for the despair the human had developed in life. She was speaking to the tangible manifestation of despair itself, and it was waiting for her to respond.

"Finish it!"

She ordered her thoughts carefully, pulling together all the information she'd gathered and conclusions she'd drawn from countless hours of study and peer counseling. "It means that the individual must try to adapt to the environment. A change in the environment, or in the individual's perception of it, requires him to adapt if he wishes to continue living a healthy, productive life. A strong, resilient mind will adapt." She caught her breath. The blackness was still. It was listening. "But sometimes the mind doesn't adapt. Three main reasons for that. Biochemical imbalance: the individual is physically unable to adapt. Ignorance: the individual tries to adapt but doesn't know how. Finally, outright refusal to adapt. When any of these three conditions are present and sufficiently serious, the individual abandons the idea of truly enjoying life, thinking it impossible. It's not uncommon for them to turn to self-mutilation or violence against others for consolation instead."

But then, sometimes, something else starts to happen." Jazz's eyes narrowed. The tentacles began to thicken and stretch out toward her again. "What began as a way to cope begins to take control. The individual can begin to define themselves by their affliction and its destructive symptoms. Soon, they don't feel like they can control it anymore. They sink deeper and deeper until they either pull themselves out of it, with or without outside help, or they continue to deteriorate. You," she said, addressing the black smear across the table. "Are that self-perpetuating depression. And you," she scoffed. "Are nothing more than a pathetic lie that preys on confused minds."

Those boiling, creeping, reaching eyes exploded, pouring themselves out into the world and engulfing her. She had enough time to see Tucker jerk his arm to the thermos, but then there was only darkness.

As Jazz and Alex had begun to talk, Danny had arrived at the alley and stood frozen. It was dark. Overhanging roofs blocked out the light. Trash littered it, and puddles of filth occupied small dips in the pavement. It was very much like the alley that night, three eternities ago.

There was a dented, lidded trash can in the corner. A crinkled piece of binder paper was attached to it. It read, "Happy Birthday" in a dark, spattered red. Danny stood, transfixed. He was crying.

He forced himself to move, putting one foot in front of the other mechanically, slowly. He broke halfway there and raced up to the can, tearing off the paper. His hand was on the lid and then the lid was off and he was looking inside. A tangle of fabric, skin, and boots. Some blood.

"Sam," Danny cried. "Sam, are you alright? Sam! Say something, oh God please say something." He grasped the can and gently tipped it over and poured her out. He threw away the can and bent over her, cradling her and holding her over the filth of the alley floor. Soiled rags, stained black with blood, were tied about her wrists. They still dripped crimson. He looked in her eyes, but only a moping, lazy darkness looked out from her sockets.

"Oh Sam..." he held her and rocked her, weeping. "I love you. I'm sorry I never told you but I love you and I should have listened to you back at that alley, before this ever started." I love you and I can't do this without you. Danny felt his own demons stir. He felt them, and he looked at Sam, and he heard people scream outside. He couldn't do it. He couldn't take it anymore. It was time to let go it was time to give up it was time to admit he was nothing more than an average joe who could never do anything right-

But not while Sam still breathed and people screamed outside.

He stood up, carrying her, and walked into the street. He glanced back at the cafe. It was gone. It was just that black darkness boiling around, an amebic mass grasping into side streets with long tentacles and throwing hapless pedestrians into itself. He looked down at Sam. She hung limp and unconscious in his arms.

Danny walked over to it, passing those who were fleeing. They gave him a quick glance, but nobody cared about a foolish high-schooler and his injured charge. Danny walked up to the darkness. A long, dripping black tentacle snatched him up around the waist and threw him into absolute emptiness.

It swallowed him alive. That which he had insisted was nothing more than a farce ate him whole, and he felt it begin to eat away at his mind immediately. It chewed up everything that was Danny Fenton. Thoughts, hopes, dreams, it destroyed all these equally relentlessly and replaced them with more of itself, a hollow, empty void. It ate everything it touched in him, but he wouldn't let it touch Sam. His Sam. He still carried her in his mind, and he wasn't letting go.

He gathered together what was left of himself. "Fix her," he roared into the all-consuming black. "Fix her."

The deep, ancient voice echoed through his mind, toneless, impassive, definitive.

She is ours. There is nothing you can do. We have you. Give up.

"No!"

She is ours by her choice. She gave herself up to us. Give up.

"You're lying!" he shouted. "She would never-"

But she did. It's easy and painless. Give in. Give up.

"The cuts on her wrists. Were those painless?"

Those were self-inflicted, before she joined us. Give up.

"Break me if you can," he challenged, and the pressure on his mind increased exponentially. It hurt; the pain shredded his consciousness and consumed every rational thought. He was aware only of a searing black gash across his brain. He screamed in agony.

Give up.

"Danny! Danny, is that you?" someone called.

The pain let up an infinitesimal amount, indignant at the interruption. It was enough for Danny to begin to think again. That voice... he knew that voice. But who- "Jazz!" he remembered. "Help me Jazz!"

"Danny listen to me. This darkness is built on the assumption that it's impossible to live happily or that life is not worth living. If it's true that life is worth living, than this thing is a lie. It's a lie, Danny!"

Then he had been right about it. The act of comprehension was a cure for the disease. He breathed with relief as the overwhelming pressure lessened and lifted off his mind. His memories came rushing back in thick, eager streams as the darkness retreated into the distance. He still couldn't see anything around him, but he could think clearly.

"I'm okay, but what about Sam?"

"How is she?" Jazz answered.

Danny found it an unbelievable relief that he could call and someone would answer. "Comatose."

"You have to reach her somehow. Nobody can forcibly pull another out of depression, at least not without heavy medical treatment. They have to decide, one way or another, to make the effort to get better and resume normal life. I think the same principle applies to this stuff."

Danny looked down to where Sam's head should be. "Sam?" There was nothing. Danny phased out and entered into her.

There was a dark, oppressive fog, but a light had to be coming from somewhere, because Danny could see his hands. "Sam," he called again. The light seemed a little brighter off to his right, and he flew towards it. He came to a black sphere, and its surface seemed to continue curving up and down into infinity. It had a leathery, cracked exterior that promised to be painful to the touch, but the sickly light seemed to be emanating from impossibly deep inside its fissures. Sam's light. She was still alive in there, somewhere, and Jazz had said that he had to reach her.

Danny plunged his hand into it and screamed as it burned into him, forging a link between him and itself.

A powerful bolt of something jolted through Sam. A bright beam of light was shining in from the exterior of her shell. She winced and tried to move away, but it followed her. It was pulling at her, but it was not the savage pull of the darkness. This was a different kind of pull. A worried and gentle but very determined kind of pull toward the outside. She tried to back away again. She wasn't going to come out. Not after what had put her inside. She was resting from life, she was tired of it, and she wasn't going back. She didn't care if it was Danny out there.

Wait. Danny? She looked toward the beam and felt his memories and emotions flow around her. She saw an ant struggle across a blade of grass. It pleased her, and she found it beautiful in a very simple, elegant way. She saw the stars singing in all their glory against a rich, lustrous blackness that encouraged and mothered them. She found it curious. She had never realized that any darkness could be gentle. Through his eyes she saw the city awake like a beast, civilization as it stretched and started off to another day of progress and hope in spite of all of history's wars and disgraces. And then she saw Danny.

He loved her. He loved her so much and he was sorry any of this had ever happened. He had gone through everything to reach her and he was knocking at her door for her to come out. She had given in, yes, but it didn't matter anymore because he understood what she'd gone through and he was here now to bring her back. He told her to look at all the real things in life, all the beautiful things out there worth living for, and he asked her to save herself and come back to him.

And Sam said yes.

Tucker was near the middle of it. He had heard Jazz yell something earlier, but he hadn't been able to hear her. He hadn't been able to press the button and suck up the ghost, either. He just hadn't wanted to, all of a sudden. Not after all that dark, spooky goop. It pressed hard, but once you gave up to it, it really wasn't that horrible at all. It was kind of a relief, actually. He slipped away rapidly as it ate away at him, feeding on his mind.

A ripple of astonished discontent transversed the blackness and was followed immediately by a burst of light somewhere off to Tucker's left. It streaked out and shredded the darkness into ragged tatters which dissolved out of existence in the brilliant afternoon Sun, just as it had been dissolving him a moment ago. The shroud had disintegrated within half a second. Tucker stumbled as his feet touched the earth, blinking in the bright light. He saw Alex appear as all the darkness vanished, destroyed or racing back into his eyes. The haughty doofus had a confused, surprised look on his face, and his material clothes were gone, leaving him in his normal ghostly attire of tattered jeans and t-shirt.

"Not such a hot shot now, are ya?" Tucker managed to press the button on the thermos before he passed out.

Danny woke up staring at a white ceiling with linens under him. He looked around the sterile room. There was a sink in the corner and bandages on a table. Jazz sat on a chair next to the bed. "I'm in the hospital?"

She smiled to hear him speak. "Yes."

"For what?"

"Essentially, nothing. They brought you hear to make sure you're okay, along with about a dozen others who passed out, including Tucker."

"Where's Sam? Did we win?"

Jazz laughed. "We won. Whatever you and Sam did back there was enough to blow it apart. Tucker caught Alex, so that's over. As for Sam-" Jazz pointed to the opposite wall. Sam was in the bed across from him.

"Sam!"

"She's still asleep, Danny. Her condition's a little more serious." Danny looked over at her, anxious. "Don't worry. She'll be fine."

"What's she here for?" He noticed that Sam had an IV.

"I'm not family, so I haven't been told. From appearances, I would say blood loss, malnutrition, dehydration, maybe an infection..." she caught the look on Danny's face. "It's not as bad as it sounds. She'll be okay."

Danny looked over at Sam's sleeping form. "Thank you for what you told me back there."

Jazz smiled sympathetically at him. "Anytime."

"Do you want me to tell you what was going on?"

"Not right now. You should rest. Mom and Dad are downstairs trying to get you out of here. I should go down and tell them you're awake." Danny looked up at her and then back at Sam. "Or I could take a leisurely detour to every other hall in the building, get a soda, eat dinner, see a movie..."

"Thanks a lot for everything, Jazz."

"Not a problem." She left the room, opening the curtain and pulling it shut behind her. He heard her walk off down the hallway.

He stood up and moved the chair Jazz had been using next to Sam's bed. He watched her sleep. She had lost some weight and had bruises on her face and arms, in addition to the cuts on her wrists, but her face wore an expression of contentment. He reached over and touched her hand, running his fingers along the inside of her palm. He grasped it and squeezed it in his own. She stirred, mumbling, and opened her eyes.

She blinked up at him with her clear, brilliant lavender eyes and Danny's heart burst.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey."

"How long have you been there?"

"Since I realized you were gone."

She giggled. "You're such a cornball."

"I love you."

"I love you too. I came back for you."

"You would have come back anyway."

"Maybe not."

"I think you would have."

"Shut up and kiss me."

Danny did.

END

---

A/N: How'd you guys like this? Thanks to all my reviewers: Sakura Scout (I'm happy to help), Mrs. Granger-Weasley, autumngold, and cheerin4danny. Thanks also to Wiggle Lizard for offering me a B-Day card. Check out the challenge in my profile, and keep an eye out for the sequel!


End file.
